Why is it that Bethesda didn't bother to put spears and spear combat into the vanilla game?

I've always wondered about this.

Despite the fact that TES is a fantasy game it, like nearly all games of the genre, is mostly inspired by the medieval era in terms of its weapons, armor, etc. Spears were an integral part of both ancient and medieval combat and in many cases it was the warriors' main weapon.

Is it really that hard to implement them? Even for a developer like Bethesda?

I know there are quite a few mods out there that add spears and pikes but all the ones I've come across just use them as two-handed weapons which use the same animation(s) as greatswords, warhammers, and great axes. Doing so completely defeats the purpose and I don't know if this is done b/c custom animations for them are just out of modders' reach or someone just hasn't bothered to do it yet.

I for one think it would be awesome to roll around Skyrim with a spear and shield, keeping the enemy at length with thrusts and jabs, switching between underhanded and overhanded styles, and delivering a killing thrust to some poor ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥'s belly or throat.

The fighting style for spears is drastically different then say swords and axe, and even great swords and other two handed weapons. If spears were to be included in the game, they would need to add another perk tree into the game and do some other tweaks. To answer oyur question, they probably left this out because of the extreme limitations of the xbox vversion of the game. The devlopers didn't want to make different versions it seems so they probably just wanted to leave it up to the modders to create because not everyone has extremely powerful computers and some play it on ps3 and xbox. This would be my best guess.

No idea. Spears and polearms are part of the lore and the Game Jam video shows working spear animations. Maybe they had trouble getting it to work without bugs. Maybe they're saving it for the next dlc. We can only guess.

They may be in the next DLC. Think about it, they brought back crossbows, they added a respec ability with Dragonborn, also, the new Legendary update which will basically uncap the maximum level, letting you level as high as you want. The question you should be asking is...what kind of spears will be in the next DLC? :P

Why is it that Bethesda didn't bother to put spears and spear combat into the vanilla game?

I would say the same reason they stopped dividing weapon-types realistically and included -even fewer- types of armor than in Oblivion. Namely, they were in a hurry to get the game out, and wanted to spend more time on the graphics.

You see, Bethesda has now become one of those companies that puts graphics-quality over -everything else- in their games, so other types of things, which take time to implement, get amputated from the game on the altar of graphics-quality.

Personally, I'm eager to see what happens in a console generation or two, when improving graphics any further becomes unworkable due to the sheer manpower involved.

Why is it that Bethesda didn't bother to put spears and spear combat into the vanilla game?

I would say the same reason they stopped dividing weapon-types realistically and included -even fewer- types of armor than in Oblivion.

Actually, while they removed a couple of armor types, several more were added in their place. So unless I counted wrong, Skyrim actually had more armor types than Oblivion.

For spears, they'd be nice, and I'm willing to bet more than a few septims that it might be added in an upcoming DLC, like the crossbow was, but for now, by big ol' Dragonbone Battleaxe serves me in combat well enough.

Skyrim is more action than Morrowind and Oblivion. There needs to be strong distinction between Spears and 2h Sword/Axe/Hammer. Just a few perk here and there, different animations that in the end give the same result, won't make a good reasonable argument. Morrowind had different damage type (blunt, piercing, slashing) for melee. That's a start.

I would prefer Dark Souls combat wise, not only Spear/Polearm does different damage type their moveset is distinct. And moveset means a lot in Dark Souls combat. A spear users can turtle behind a greatshield and attack without lowering their shield, and a thrust is fast, has long reach and works very well in narrow corridor/rooms with low ceiling (which is usually Greatsword/ Ultra Greatsword nightmare).

For spears, they'd be nice, and I'm willing to bet more than a few septims that it might be added in an upcoming DLC, like the crossbow was, but for now, by big ol' Dragonbone Battleaxe serves me in combat well enough.

I don't think this is likely, since a Bethesda exec recently referred to adding spears as "silly."

I'll keep my fingers crossed for spears to appear in a DLC or at least the next TES. I do find it odd though that TES isn't the only game that just kind of leaves them out. It seems like a good number of medieval fantasy games choose not even bother with them.

It sometimes also doesn't just happen with spears but other typical medieval fantasy things too. For instance I recall being pretty surprised that Dragon Age managed to leave out horses. Like, there's absolutely no mention of them at all, kind of odd.

The fighting style for spears is drastically different then say swords and axe, and even great swords and other two handed weapons. If spears were to be included in the game, they would need to add another perk tree into the game and do some other tweaks. To answer oyur question, they probably left this out because of the extreme limitations of the xbox vversion of the game. The devlopers didn't want to make different versions it seems so they probably just wanted to leave it up to the modders to create because not everyone has extremely powerful computers and some play it on ps3 and xbox. This would be my best guess.

This, they cut stuff because it was too hard, took too much time to do, or (mostly) the XBox wasn't going to be able to handle it.

The fighting style for spears is drastically different then say swords and axe, and even great swords and other two handed weapons. If spears were to be included in the game, they would need to add another perk tree into the game and do some other tweaks. To answer oyur question, they probably left this out because of the extreme limitations of the xbox vversion of the game. The devlopers didn't want to make different versions it seems so they probably just wanted to leave it up to the modders to create because not everyone has extremely powerful computers and some play it on ps3 and xbox. This would be my best guess.

This, they cut stuff because it was too hard, took too much time to do, or (mostly) the XBox wasn't going to be able to handle it.

That seems most likely. However, if the intention was to give modders the chance to put spears in, why did they go out of their way to make the skills/weapons of Skyrim much -less- moddable, and a much more closed system than in Morrowind -or- Oblivion. I've seen the Creation Kit. Compared to the construction sets of either of those games, its power is quite limited.

This may have the worst consequences, of all the problems that Skyrim had; the handicapping of the modding community.

When I got skyrim I was dissapointed with the lack of weapon variety. I was hoping that they wouldn't do what they did in oblivion and lessened the variety and maybe bring back some old weapons but they did the exact opposite and cut down the number even more. I hope they bring back more variety in the next TES game